World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) by Richard Mason Page A

me.
    â€œYou lie! You make love to that Canton girl!”
    Her anger unbottled itself and she became a little tornado, abusing me with words picked up from sailors that I had never heard her use before. I continued to deny the accusation, and she hurled a glass at me. It exploded on the wall over the bed, scattering the bed with fragments.
    â€œYou lie! I thought you were a big man—important! But I made mistake! You’re just butterfly—no good!”
    â€œSuzie, this is ridiculous,” I said. “I’m not even your proper boy friend, and you’ve no right to behave as if you owned me. I don’t like it.”
    â€œNow you speak truth—you don’t want me! You think me dirty little yum-yum girl! All right—finish! I go!” And she went.
    That night she cut me in the bar. The next morning, meeting her on the quay as she was coming to the Nam Kok, I started to speak to her, but she averted her face and stalked past. This went on for several days and I found myself missing her telephone calls and visits. I realized how fond of her I had grown.
    Then one morning, turning out a pocket, I came across a slip of paper from the bank recording the transaction with the five-pound note. I had forgotten ever receiving it. I rang for Ah Tong and asked him to write me some Chinese characters, which I copied onto the back of the bank slip. They meant “I miss you very much.” And that evening I gave the slip to Gwenny, to pass on to Suzie.
    An hour later my telephone rang.
    â€œHello, this is Suzie.”
    â€œHello, Suzie.”
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œAll right. I come and see you.”
    And once more there were the five minutes of preliminaries, followed by the straight, frank look.
    â€œYou’re a good man. No lie. I make mistake.”
    I laughed and said that I could not care less about Betty Lau. Then she explained solemnly why she had been so upset: after she had claimed me as her boy friend, my apparent liaison with Betty had caused her serious loss of face.
    â€œI felt scared to go inside the bar, you know,” she said. “I felt too much shame. I thought, ‘Except for my baby, I’d kill myself!’”
    â€œSuzie, you didn’t!”
    â€œYes, I was so ashamed.”
    â€œWell, come and look what I’ve been doing.”
    And I showed her the oil painting of her that I was making from a sketch. The size of the canvas impressed her, and the prospect of bringing her girl friends to see it made up for the humiliation she had undergone. She became herself again. She gave a sudden mischievous giggle as she remembered throwing the glass at me.
    â€œI nearly hit you! Whoosh!”
    â€œYes, and I’ve been pulling splinters out of myself ever since.”
    The giggles overcame her. She rolled about on the bed in delight.
    â€œI bet you were chokka! You still chokka with me?”
    â€œYes, you little devil—thoroughly chokka,” I said.
    II
    Sometimes in the mornings she brought her baby to see me. It was rather a puny, pathetic little infant, with something quite heart-rending about its sallow Chinese-English face; and it looked not young but middle-aged, with an expression, in repose, of bewildered despair. It was as if it knew that it was a half-caste and had nothing to look forward to except a lifetime of not-belonging.
    But Suzie was marvelous with it. She would hold it on her crooked arm with a practiced and motherly ease that never failed to astonish me; it was so incongruous with her unmotherly appearance. The baby would splutter ecstatically, waving a tin rice bowl at the end of its outstretched arm, while Suzie chattered to it adoringly.
    â€œHey, why you still cough? Why you so naughty? Yes, naughty boy! Only you’re so beautiful, I got to forgive you! Oh, yes, you’re beautiful baby! Good-looking! Maybe some day you make a film star!”
    We would spread a